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Junior Member
New HT system
Hi,
I am planning to get my new HT from ascend tech.
I saw that the new sierra-1 is good from the forum.
I plan to get 2 of those and think about the surround sound later. Should I get a central channel right away or bother about it when I get my surround speakers?
I dont have the $ to get the full HT if I go for sierras.
Can someone please advice?
My room would be 12 X 14 ft.
Thanks,
Member
I would personally start with the pair. I would rather have a good stereo pair than a mediocre 5.1. You can always add on later.
Junior Member
Hi,
So you are saying I should use a receiver and connect only the seirra-1? I thought at least the cental channel was required. Can you explain how best I can connect the sierras to my TV?
Member
If you are sitting directly between your speakers (presumedly in front of your TV) you wont miss the center channel. It would be nice when you have friends over and they are sitting off to the side. I don't have a center right now and very rarely miss it. As far as connecting it to your TV I would connect your DVD player and all your other sources directly to your reciever and let the reciever do the switching. Check your TV for audio outs, either analog or digital, and use those to connect to the receiver. Just make sure your reciever has the inputs, and features, that you need.
This would be my order of construction for a 50/50 HT/music setup: (assuming you have a TV and dvd player)
Reciever & main stereo pair
Sub
Surrounds
Center
Acoustic treatments
upgrade sources if applicable and depending on quality of components
upgrade receiver if applicable and depending on quality of components
upgrade speakers if applicable and depending on quality of components
Member
It depends on whether your receiver/preprocessor fully supports the downmix parameters introduced in the A/52B standard (revised Dolby Digital definition), which on some titles can squash the dynamic range a little or a whole lot in the absence of a center channel speaker, regardless of your main Dynamic Range Compression setting. The only example I can think of off the top of my head at the moment is Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition--at least on my receiver, the DD soundtrack is significantly less dynamic without the center channel (the DTS soundtrack is fine, but not all DVDs have DTS soundtracks).Originally Posted by Jacob C
That said, you can certainly do without a center channel without missing dialogue or something as drastic as that, but unless you know for sure that your system is not impacted in the manner described above, in the long run, I definitely think you'll want to have a center channel speaker.
This would especially be true if your left and right front speakers are placed much farther apart than the width of your screen. By the way, that's where I think the modern notion of "anchoring" the dialogue to the screen comes from, as opposed to the early days of multi-channel soundtracks, when rerecording mixers made greater use of localized, directional dialogue (that could come from any combination of the three or five front speakers) on large screens. When Dolby Stereo became prominent in theaters, it tended to steer most off-center dialogue toward the center anyway (probably as a result of its auto-balance circuit), so mixers became accustomed to thinking of the center channel as the "dialogue channel," which later happened to coincide with the fact that most home theater screens are quite narrow (not an issue with commercial theaters). However, this association is really just a result of coincidence and circumstance, I believe, rather than some kind of ideal. In fact, some rerecording mixers, such as Gary Rydstrom, use directional dialogue in modern movies, which probably doesn't sound quite right to the critical listener on most home theater systems (I arrange my front speakers in much the same manner as commercial theaters, so I don't normally experience any issues myself).
Junior Member
Thanks for your replies.
So lets say I get the sierra-1 LR and 340 Centre. I am thinking of getting the Onkyo SR575. I think I get the surround sound later which would be HTM-200s.
Would sierra be too loud when compared to 340 LR?
If I get a sierra can I get a sub later on when I getting my HTMs?
Forum Founder
No...you would just calibrate the speakers accordingly.
Sure.
-curtis
Junior Member
Curtis,
The caliberation that you are talking about will be done through the receiver right?
Should the LR speakers be kept a little further from the tV or should they be adjacent if a 340C is being used?
Member
The SR575 should have an auto-calibration function built in to take care of this for you if you don't feel like doing it manually. Personally, I think this function does not always produce good results, so whatever components you end up buying, feel free to ask for help in setting everything up. At the very least, any receiver will have an option to output noise from each channel, one at a time, and allow you to adjust its relative volume either by using a sound pressure meter or just your ears. This is what is generally meant by "calibration."
The Sierra-1s should provide quite satisfying bass until you can get a sub. In the receiver, you must set the center (340C) to "Small", the left and right mains (Sierra-1) to "Large", and the subwoofer output to "Off" or "None".
In general, one must compromise between movies and music. Before we go on, how wide is your TV and how far will you sit from it?
Junior Member
My TV is 42 inch rear projection from sony.
I would be sitting 8-10 feet from the TV.
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